The Way of Love

For the activity and clear proof of perfect love towards God is a genuine disposition of voluntary goodwill towards one's neighbor. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, says the divine Apostle John, cannot love God whom he has not seen (1 John 4:20). This is the way of truth, as the Word of God calls himself, that leads those who walk in it, pure of all passions, to God the Father. This is the door, through which the one who enters finds himself in the Holy of Holies, and is made worthy to behold the unapproachable beauty of the holy and royal Trinity.

—Maximus the Confessor, "Letter 2: On Love" (626)